Thursday Dealmaster: Monitors and toys for all

And we've got some more international deals, too!

Good morning and/or afternoon, Arsians! Our partners at LogicBuy have produced another fine list of deals for you all to peruse, starting with a few hundred bucks off of Dell's flagship 27-inch UltraSharp U2713H. It's a desk-filling kind of 16:9 monitor, and you know how I feel about monitors—you can never have enough!

Not to leave out our international buddies, the LogicBuy folks are also continuing to add some more deals for non-USA readers. We've got a few more tidbits from our UK and Canada friends, and we're looking to add more. It's an ongoing process!

Can anyone shed some light on the relative value of that Toshiba Laptop. It seems like a great deal and it's primary purpose would be a semi-portable workstation for my wife to use for photoshop/illustrator/inDesign. The hard drive is a bit puny, but that could be taken care of later. I believe the newest integrated graphics can handle those applications fine...

So someone tell me why I *shouldn't* buy this -- seriously looking for a reason.

My primary concern would be the screen. Even clicking through to the full specs, they don't tell you what sort of display tech they use. (Actually, they can't even decide if it's 1920x1200 or 1920x1080; both are listed on the web page, though the PDF says only x1080.) The fact that they don't even mention something about "wide viewing angles" -- associated with IPS which you want -- suggests that it probably isn't. The lack of color accuracy common with cheaper panels would be a drawback for Photoshop.

Can anyone shed some light on the relative value of that Toshiba Laptop. It seems like a great deal and it's primary purpose would be a semi-portable workstation for my wife to use for photoshop/illustrator/inDesign. The hard drive is a bit puny, but that could be taken care of later. I believe the newest integrated graphics can handle those applications fine...

So someone tell me why I *shouldn't* buy this -- seriously looking for a reason.

The only thing I notice off the top of my head is that the display is "only" 1920x1080, which may be okay for routine stuff, but could be annoying for a graphics person. Solvable with an external monitor, but...

The Satellite series is generally "okay" in terms of build quality, BUT I've owned two of them over the years and they've done fine traveling in a good case and with decent end-user TLC.

Note that for $120 you can bump to a hybrid drive on that machine; might give you the speed boost you're looking for without voiding the warranty (not sure if it would) by replacing the drive yourself. 5400RPM drive = no thanks

I've had a decidedly middling experience with Intel's series 4000 graphics -- hoping for better on the Haswell platform -- but install the latest drivers if/when you purchase this.

All that said, a 3-year warranty and that price is a reasonable deal. (Check the terms on that warranty -- it reads "3-year *limited* warranty," so just be clear on what the limitations are.)

Can anyone shed some light on the relative value of that Toshiba Laptop. It seems like a great deal and it's primary purpose would be a semi-portable workstation for my wife to use for photoshop/illustrator/inDesign. The hard drive is a bit puny, but that could be taken care of later. I believe the newest integrated graphics can handle those applications fine...

So someone tell me why I *shouldn't* buy this -- seriously looking for a reason.

The only thing I notice off the top of my head is that the display is "only" 1920x1080, which may be okay for routine stuff, but could be annoying for a graphics person. Solvable with an external monitor, but...

The Satellite series is generally "okay" in terms of build quality, BUT I've owned two of them over the years and they've done fine traveling in a good case and with decent end-user TLC.

Note that for $120 you can bump to a hybrid drive on that machine; might give you the speed boost you're looking for without voiding the warranty (not sure if it would) by replacing the drive yourself. 5400RPM drive = no thanks

I've had a decidedly middling experience with Intel's series 4000 graphics -- hoping for better on the Haswell platform -- but install the latest drivers if/when you purchase this.

All that said, a 3-year warranty and that price is a reasonable deal. (Check the terms on that warranty -- it reads "3-year *limited* warranty," so just be clear on what the limitations are.)

Thanks, you kinda backed-up everything I was thinking. Outside of the chromebook, I haven't seen any laptop under $1K with a higher-res -- at least it's not 1366x768! I'd be more concerned with it's viewing angles and color-accuracy, but i think it's worth the chance. And yes, it will be hooked to an external when docked.

Thanks, you kinda backed-up everything I was thinking. Outside of the chromebook, I haven't seen any laptop under $1K with a higher-res -- at least it's not 1366x768! I'd be more concerned with it's viewing angles and color-accuracy, but i think it's worth the chance. And yes, it will be hooked to an external when docked.

Looks like this is a birthday present.

Groovy. You're right regarding the price point and display resolution, unless you find a closeout deal on a previous-generation notebook now that Haswell's been released. If she's not planning to do heavy-duty high-res graphics work when mobile, this is a good budget-conscious option. Do upgrade the drive, though... I can't imagine loading PS from a 5400RPM spinning disk...

Thanks, you kinda backed-up everything I was thinking. Outside of the chromebook, I haven't seen any laptop under $1K with a higher-res -- at least it's not 1366x768! I'd be more concerned with it's viewing angles and color-accuracy, but i think it's worth the chance. And yes, it will be hooked to an external when docked.

Looks like this is a birthday present.

Groovy. You're right regarding the price point and display resolution, unless you find a closeout deal on a previous-generation notebook now that Haswell's been released. If she's not planning to do heavy-duty high-res graphics work when mobile, this is a good budget-conscious option. Do upgrade the drive, though... I can't imagine loading PS from a 5400RPM spinning disk...

I did -- i turned my head and dove on that $120 like a live grenade! $819 after tax (free shipping). I'm pleased. I hope she is.

I did -- i turned my head and dove on that $120 like a live grenade! $819 after tax (free shipping). I'm pleased. I hope she is.

Awesome. You saved yourself the inevitable pain of hearing "this thing is slow" the day it comes out of the box.

8GB isn't a ton of SSD, and I'm guessing it's either a feature of the disk itself, or a software-managed thing (wherein a driver decides "hey, these files get read a lot" and moves them to the SSD), or maybe even a separate device on an mSATA port... but regardless, is surely better than a 5400RPM disk by itself.

doubleclick is a devnull for me too. At the end of the doubleclick url is *another* bit.ly url, copy and paste that.

doubleclick.<anything> is blocked in my HOSTS file as well. Looks like time to whip up yet another link-decrypter-follower script.

I'm not familiar with building plugins/addons/extensions for Chrome or Firefox. Is it possible to intercept the URL and rework it before giving it to the browser? If it is, sounds like time to make my own tool to de-nastify these kind of links.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.